[Edit – the audio file was replaces at 4pm 15/5/2019]
In this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) try to work out if we have anything useful to say about an election that is all hype but actually a snoozefest. What does it tell us about the state of Australian society, what can anticapitalists draw from it? Are we about the #Changetherules or will Clive Palmer be leading us into a Kangaroo Reich? What happens the morning after?
We also address some criticisms we have received and try to muddle through some blindspots in our thinking.
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Stuff we mention includes:
Anti-politics and how to watch election night
Fully Automated Luxury Communism? | Ash Sarkar meets Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi
Sojourner Truth Organisation: Understanding and Fighting White Supremacy
The capitalist class is reaching for ‘stability’ in a period of crises ridden stagflation globally. There is a need to culturally ‘rights -wash’ Australian capitalism through the means of appealing to the state for solutions. Enlivening social democracy because the rights focus on culture wars has taken eyes off of solid profit making.
Keeping things regulated means corporations know what to expect – Labor’s classic wage labour driven capitalism based around shared neo-liberal assumptions re economic growth that will never come.
Bring on instability. Labor will fail to deliver because there will be far right cross bench candidates elected populating the Senate.
Housing affordability and the debate around property markets is evidence of how moribund Australian capitalism is that it needs the state to subsidise it while prices are in free-fall.
While this might not be ‘critical’ of your discussions I do think a victory for the ALP is designed to try to kick things into gear for the state to keep buttressing capital.
Reactionary politics in Australia is not necessarily seeing a fresh resurgence (a la on a scale of some european and South american contexts) – but an inertia like backlash against social gains in general. What a collapse in the ‘establishment right’ major party vote will mean possibly more reactionary candidates getting elected on narrow margins/vote count.
Preference math is going to be interesting this election.
My disillusionment re social change has now calloused over. Great episode.